Set Assignment Default Due Time

We are a K-12 school. One of the biggest negative feedback items we receive on Canvas has to do with assignments being due at midnight (11:59). Parents are concerned that we effectively asking them to stay up until midnight to turn in their homework. This is especially important for our middle school and junior high students.

We would like to be able to set assignment due time to default to a time that can be set in our school's account settings.

Yes, it is true that teachers can change the time, but we are relying on them doing the extra steps all the time to match our school's assignment policy - and it requires a lot of clicks to make this simple change.

This idea was considered when developing our product plan for Q1 2019 and is not expected to influence development within Canvas at this time.

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You have my vote. As the instructor it would be nice to be able to set a default due time in each individual course settings. As a high school teacher I teach 5 classes and I would like each classes assignments to default to be due at the beginning of each class, rather than midnight. Seems like this would be a very easy feature to implement, and was shocked it was not already built in.

This would be really helpful for higher ed, too. In one of the previous mentions of this idea, they discussed exactly how it might work at the account, sub account, course, and section level. This option would save hours for the faculty who teach a section at a particular time, and want homework or other assignments due just before class - a very common need.

It would be even better if this were implemented and reflected in the course import and copy.

I didn't see the previous comment about where this idea should be implemented, but I thought I would add my 2 cents.

I can see that this setting should occur at multiple levels. First, is at the system level (which is likely the school level). The school might want to set this default to 9PM. Then, an instructor should be able to override this setting somewhere in instructor settings, such as "I want all my due times to default to xx:xxPM". Then (and in this order) the course should have a setting that say "For this course, set all due times to xx:xxPM". (You get the idea.)

This is so logical!!! In a k-12 setting, the default should be 8am, meaning students should have their homework done before arriving at school. With the current system, it's too laborious to enter in a specific time of the class meeting, especially because we have a rotating schedule. As a result, we just tell the kids to ignore the time and have all assignments finished when they arrive at school. However, the 11:59 Default throws off their ability to use the agenda and other organizational tools on Canvas. Instructors should be able to control the default, or it should at least be able to be set at the school level!

Yes. In talking to students 8am is their preferred time. It was also the time that things would normally be due for students when they turned in traditional paper work. 9pm is too early, too many athletes don't get home until around then or later. My son would rather go to sleep at 11pm and then wake up early so his mind is rested before doing an assignment.

We desperately need a solution like this! Our students really start using Canvas in the 4th grade. It is so confusing to them to have assignments due at midnight. It also makes assignments difficult for parents to track when they are looking at a calendar based on time (like a standard Outlook view). And it is frustrating to all users who stream the Calendar Feed to their phones to have reminders going off in the middle of the night.

I would like to see this feature implemented in a hierarchy similar to the terms and start/end dates. Basically a default time could be set at the root account. If a time is also set at the subaccount level, then it overrides the root account setting. If an instructor sets a time at the course level, then it overrides the subaccount setting. And lastly, if the teacher sets the time on an individual assignment then it overrides the course setting. This would give us a baseline starting time, then our Middle School (which starts at 8) could have a different default time than our Upper School (which starts at 8:20). It would also give our teachers the flexibility to override those times either at the course or assignment level since all of our classes (K-12) are on a rotating schedule.

Would this feature idea also allow teachers to set the default time for each section? Having to input multiple due times for multiple sections in one assignment is tedious in the assignment edit settings.

If it was possible to set the default time for each section in the course settings, then teachers could select one due date for multiple sections that meet on that day, with a unique start time tied to each section (eliminating the need to enter in multiple times).

It would also be nice to be able to set the due date time as "in class". That way, it is clear that assignments with paper submission are due at classtime, regardless of what actual time of day that is.

Or perhaps paper submission assignments could have just the date and NO time associated with it?

Another idea relating to this feature request was suggested by Robby Cherry, where Canvas would give an option to hide the due date time in the Calendar so teachers can tell students "it's due at the beginning of class." If Canvas would implement a default due time, maybe a "hide" due time could also be possible.

Excellent idea. I understand why the default was midnight for universities. However, it's a pain when I've asked for work in at school and the students use the excuse that it's not due in until midnight.

I see that this could be helpful, but my students also know that they can resubmit after it is due. The reason is because I make comments and they can turn in an updated assignment. I love the comments section - and the potential for them to resubmit even after it is due!

There are many ways that teacher can use this feature. For you it would be help in communication of when something is due and ease parent concerns. However, there are many teachers that do not accept late work or deduct points for late assignments. For those teachers this is vitally important.

Very few classes start at 11:59pm. Many teachers require assignments be completed by the time class begins. Therefore, every time a teacher wants the assignment due when class begins, they must change the time. Much better to be able to control the default and eliminate the number of clicks, especially for a form that we use with such frequency as "assignments."

There's other reasons I'm sure, but one reason I can think of is that Canvas uses the time to indicate if an assignment has been turned in late. If turned in past the due date, the cell in the gradebook will appear red, alerting teachers as to what assignments have been turned in late.

Have there been any additional updates from Instructure related to this issue? The Gathering Info comment says "Expect a response within the next 30 days." It *seems* like it's been more than 30 days since that comment was posted. We really need this feature so I am anxious for this request to move forward. Thanks!

When I choose to have an assignment submitted on paper, Canvas should default the time for the due date to "in class" or "at the beginning of class". Having an 11:59 PM due time makes no sense for paper submissions!

Thank you Mel Wade for your feedback regarding default time for submissions to assignments. The discussion here is helpful and we'll certainly keep this in mind as we look to simplify assignment in the future. However, we won't be doing any adjustments to this functionality at this time. Thanks again for your time and for sharing your use cases.

Is there a Canvas project priority list available to the community? Because that would be very interesting to see what is trumping the "Set Assignment Default Due Time" request that has so many use cases.

+100 here too .. I have three classes, assignments are due at the beginning of class, i.e., at 8:30am 10:30am and 12:30pm. I have about 30 to 40 assignments each semester, this means I have to enter these due times manually between 90 to 120 times, every semester - it's tedious, potentially error prone, and totally unnecessary. The computer should take care of the tedium.

Honestly, I don't understand why this isn't a feature already. As a computer scientist, it seems to me it would be relatively easy to implement and the effort to do that would be dwarfed by the time saving for all the uses. Please consider implementing this in the near future, you'll have a lot of grateful users. Thank you!

It's a Google Spreadsheet that loads all of the dates for assignments and quizzes for your course onto one page. You can then change the date/time of the assignments and send it back to Canvas.

While it wasn't designed to make a default time, it can be used for that purpose pretty easily. If you want all of your assignments to be due at 8:30 am, you could "Load Due Dates", then "Show Times", do a search/replace to find 23:59 and replace it with it 08:30 and then "Save Due Dates". If you're already got the dates in Canvas without the times, then that will work. If you don't already have the dates in Canvas, you can set them in the spreadsheet and not mess with the Canvas interface.

I know it's not the same as having it built-in, but it could save you a lot of time on those 120 assignments.

Wow .. those instructions look impressive, and video too, thanks, I'll have to check it out. However, I suspect this may not work for me as I don't "front load" all assignments for the semester at once, but keep adding them one or two at a time for each different course as the semester progresses. I'd just be happy if Canvas could remember the previous settings (like it does for submission type and document type) - that in itself would be very helpful.

I will take a closer look at your documentation just in case though - thanks for taking the time to do that and to reach out.

Maybe you could benefit from using a keyboard macro program like AutoHotkey (for Windows) or Keyboard Maestro (for Mac). I've used AutoHotkey (AHK) in other software to replace repetitive tasks by assigning a keyboard shortcut to it, but I've not used the Keyboard Maestro.

For another system I use, I have to drag an assignment across the screen and drop it into a box for a particular week, then click edit (the button changes position on the screen based on how many assignments there are), then change it to either be due on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, and then click save, wait for it to close the edit dialog, and then repeat the entire process with the next assignment. As far as I know, they don't have an API so I could do it programmatically, so I'm stuck with the web interface. With AHK, I was able to put my mouse over the assignment on the left side and then press Ctrl+Alt+1 for Monday, Ctrl+Alt+2 for Wednesday, or Ctrl+Alt+3 for Friday and let it do the rest. When I'm done, I unload the hotkeys so they're no longer active.

In your case, you might be able to pick keystrokes that send " 08:30am", " 10:30am", or " 12:30pm" and then, as soon as you type the date, you press the hotkey to add the time.

If you use the date picker, it would be a little more complicated since it adds the "at 11:59pm" at the end that needs deleted. In that case, you could send a "{BS 7}08:30AM{TAB}" to backspace 7 times over the 11:59pm and then put in the desired time and TAB out of the date picker to the next field. You then activate the hotkey after clicking the mouse to choose the date.

Some people who want it to default to the current date could do something similar. You can get fancier, like going ahead and clicking the "Save and Publish" button or filling out other information that can be programmatically determined. You could even exam the URL to get the course ID and then automatically decide which time to add based off which course it is. There's a lot that could be done.

Ultimately, what you do comes down to how much it bothers you. If it's a minor inconvenience, you comment how it could be improved so Canvas is aware of the issue and then you deal with it. If it's a major annoyance, you look into alternatives. That's something each person has to decide for themselves. I'm a person who hates repetitive tasks and will spend 13 hours of programming to avoid 5 minutes of clicking, but for many, the work-around takes more effort than just dealing with it.

For anyone interested in this topic, be sure to RSVP to the CanvasLIVE event Adjust all assignment due dates on one page, which is coming up this Friday, January 13, 2017. RSVP “yes” if you will be there--and if you’re interested, but your schedule doesn’t allow you to attend in real time, RSVP "no" or "maybe" to receive all event updates. Your RSVP ensures that you will receive a notification should the event be cancelled or changed.

In the meantime, can Canvas simply make the system-wide default time 5pm or 8pm instead of 11:59pm?

I work at an independent high school. Overheard in the halls: "I have until midnight to get this in" or "they keep telling us to get more sleep but then the deadline is midnight; teachers are hypocrites." Yes, the default time can and should be adjustable - but since so many teachers, in all sorts of schools, don't consistently take those extra steps, there's a strong demonstrated need to make the default time somewhere in the realm of normal working hours.

This would help adjust school cultures where students' lack of sleep is a growing health issue (or even an troubling type of bragging right). Correcting the default time could improve students' well-being, while reducing unintentional midnight deadlines.

Changing it to a time like 5pm would also reduce confusion for those who aren't looking carefully at a.m. vs. p.m. I sometimes hear teachers say they thought it was a midday time.

A default per institutional account, or even sub-account, does make sense. For what it's worth, in our business school's culture, the current default of 11:59pm in the school time zone works well for us.

I think this is one of those preferences that is definitely different between Higher Ed and K-12. In HE, setting a deadline at midnight makes sense (students are adults, and they often need more time flexibility). In K-12, kids need more support in making good choices about how and when to study and work. It definitely further supports the need to adjust the system-wide default!

I will note that we once accidentally found a way to change the default time as a designer/teacher in Canvas (thank you Anthony Bunag). We were building courses in Denver for a University out of California. We wanted the 11:59 time as the deadline. What ended up happening when we tested classes was the deadlines were all 10:59pm since the students were on Pacific Time (thankfully, we caught it early, but it all had to be fixed manually - no easy fix was available at that time). It seems a bit of an annoying fix to have the system time and the computer time of the designers set to make it so that the default time is what you want, and I'm not even 100% sure it would still work this way, but it's an idea. I'll admit, it's not a great one!

The teachers at the Sequoia Union High School District would like to request that the automatic time stamp have the option to change the default from "11:59pm" to another option. Currently, for each assignment, teachers have to change the time. The teachers in our district are trying to move away from the 11:59 deadline because we don't want students submitting work late into the night. We want to encourage healthy sleeping habits and this default does not help us do this. We would like the option to change the default to whatever we want it to be.

The due time SHOULD NOT BE 11:59pm (even in higher ed). And it should not be such a hassle for teachers to change it.

I came specifically looking to see if this feature has been added yet. Honestly this is a feature that should be implemented regardless of popularity because it has such a tremendous impact on the students. A lot of the features being proposed are "nice" for teachers to have, but the ability to change default due times affects many thousands of students in a significant way.

Thanks, Jeremy, for raising this. To your point about it affecting so many students - I also see this feature as an influential reflection of how educators (and those who make educational tools) consider the well-being of all participants, students and teachers. Yes, a teacher may want to personally give a midnight deadline etc. for higher ed students. But if we signal throughout an entire system that it's OK to expect work at such a late hour, eating away at a crucial resource (rest and sleep, especially for young people), that signal indicates a broader value, implies other expectations within educational culture. It validates working late, crunching, pushing oneself in cycles of work that can become unhealthy patterns.

One default setting in a complex tool may seem like just a detail - but these signals in such a widely used system truly do have a larger significance.

Thanks for adding to it-- there is much more I'd like to say about this matter than I did in my terseness. And yes, I completely agree. The current default is purely arbitrary in any terms relevant to social science. As educators we have to be more acutely aware of how these seemingly minor policy pieces contribute to the actual development and wellbeing of our students. We have to be realistic about how these decisions affect actual student and teacher behaviors, and this one is such a no-brainer to me I'm legitimately upset that it's languished on the radar for so long.

Quite honestly, setting due dates and times is something that I see as simply needing to be done in any LMS. It goes hand-in-hand with creating an assignment. Sure, as I said above, it might be nice to be able to set a default time, and it would be great if Canvas could know the date too. But I think that these things are best done by humans. Even if we had a system to say "Make this assignment due 3 weeks after the start date of the course," what would you do if this date happened to be a holiday?

The default of 11:59 PM, in my opinion, is as good as any. For teachers who think this is a strange time, I would say "Yes, it is strange. It is there to draw your attention to change it." I don't see having any other default time across the system being any better. If you surveyed people, you would probably end up with many different suggestions. For example, I would probably say "00:00AM" would be better, but this gets translated to 12 PM, and is this lunchtime or midnight? I teach at the college level, so my favorite due time is 11:55 PM (which is my vote for a system-level default due time. And I would like this default to be "by teacher" and not by course or by the system.)

Speaking as a teacher, I don't think any instructor wants an extra box to tick, especially if the value never changes. Most campuses K-HE have an effectively consistent due time, and most instructors do not change the default time (making midnight the campus due time). Midnight as a default time is not "as good as any." Midnight as a due time ensures that if you have an issue with your submission, there is no one who will be available to assist you. It encourages procrastination and discourages healthy sleep habits. Any time between 12PM-9PM would be a vastly better default due time.

Conversely, there is no sensible way to set a default date (everything due on the same day? That makes no sense, not even if you want it to be "Fridays")

Teachers should be able to adjust their own defaults also, but the due times for assignments should generally be a data-based institutional decision unless there are exceptions for individuals/courses. If admin can change it then they can get it close enough to what teachers prefer while reducing work for the largest number of teachers possible. Right now if a campus wants work due at 5:00, that means every teacher has to configure it manually for every assignment.

I don't think the question is who should be able to change the default due time, but that somebody should be able to.

I can't believe we are still discussing this 2 years later - let the teachers manage their classes as best as they see fit. Technology is supposed to help us do our jobs, not create artificial hurdles. Yes, we can find work-arounds for this, but why create extra work for us?

I teach three different U classes, and each class has a different due time, e.g.,9:30 AM, 11:30 AM and maybe 12:30 PM .. I have to change this from the silly 11:59 PM default manually many times each semester for each and every assignment. It is tedious and should not be necessary.

I do not understand (esp as a computer scientist) why this can not be implemented, so I believe it's a non-technical policy decision that has been made clearly by people who do not teach that costs everyone who does teach extra unnecessary time. Sad, really.

Let's see if I have this right. Jeremy thinks that the default should be at the Teacher level, but then also supports a School-level policy, so I am not sure exactly where he stands, teacher or university. He also has his own preference of between 12PM and 9PM (or that this should match normal "support" hours.)

You, Esmail, seem to support a "class" or "course-level" default. You also have suggested two or three times that you like.

I would like the default to be at the "teacher-level" because I use the same due time for all my assignments and courses, 11:55 PM.

I think we all agree that we would like to have a default time, but we cannot agree at which level it should be at. So Esmail, what you describe as a simple computer programming issue may not be so, meaning that it is not so simple. However, if we take a simple-minded approach, we have two votes for teacher-level, and one vote for the other levels, meaning that teacher-level defaults wins!

Well, I hope that you are now seeing the bigger scope of the problem. It is not so simple. If we could decide where the default should be, then maybe it is a simple programming modification.

Oh, here is one more solution. Why not two defaults: one to pick the default level (at the system-level,) and one to pick the default time once the level is picked. Good solution, right? Well, if so, the programming task gets much more difficult. Or, we might want all three levels supported, meaning that the school (or system) comes first, the teacher can override this with their own default, and the teacher can override their own default at the course-level. More complex programming, but doable. Hmmm, what happens when you have three or more teachers assigned to the same course?

For the time being, I think we are left with the current solution "When you set an assignment you must set the due date and time."

I did just review my Teacher settings, and I do see "Feature Options." This seems to be a logical place to add "Default due time." In my system, these seem to be on/off settings, but maybe a textbox can be added for "Default Due Time."

I also have a programming background, and even with those complications it's not that difficult a problem. Canvas already has at least a dozen settings that can be configured by the teacher or at the administrative level (with administrative override, obviously) and software design patterns for this type of feature are numerous. I'm sure with their code base they could cut and paste three things together and make it happen.

But the short answer is that any solution is better than none. It's just a default setting, so literally changing a variable is all that would be required for a stopgap solution (by the way 12-9 is not a matter of personal preference, rather a matter of times that work well for most students-- mine would ideally be 5PM based on the campus I work at and it would be different if I worked else). Giving the power to administrators OR teachers is the simplest to implement; both still allow teachers to make the same custom changes. Would it be easier for almost everyone for me as the admin to set the default time for the entire campus? Yes, probably. But it also offers less granular control, and it's not that much harder to show faculty how to change their default due time and even make policies regarding what those should be. Both would be ideal, sure. If you only have one, it really depends on the campus which would be better, but at the teacher level would generally satisfy the most institutions needs.

Hmmm, 12-9? Many of my courses are , and many students don't work from 12-9, nor do they work only M-F. And some of my students are in different time zones, like China, Europe, and Japan. So how does one count 12-9? Also, I teach and face-to-face graduate-level courses. These students usually have normal jobs, so they don't always do course assignments between 12-9.

But the real point is that time frames, and due times will vary from teacher to teacher, from course to course, and from school to school. This is why I support teacher-level defaults for times. Yep, much better than what we have right now. I agree with you that "any solution is better than none" and support that Canvas should make this improvement.

" I also have a programming background, and even with those complications it's not that difficult a problem. Canvas already has at least a dozen settings that can be configured by the teacher or at the administrative level (with administrative override, obviously) and software design patterns for this type of feature are numerous. I'm sure with their code base they could cut and paste three things together and make it happen."

Exactly, as Jeremy says, it's not like we are inventing some new ground breaking technology here by having a few more settings/options.

I.e., no need to confuse this by making it appear more complex than it is Rick. Minimally have it remember what time was used for the last assignment for the class as that's likely to stay the same (and if not, well, then you manually change it like you have to do it now).

As a teacher I can already configure a number of things. For instance when my course materials on Canvas become available to my students at the start of the semester and when they become unavailable at the end by changing the system defaults for each of my courses I have on Canvas. Likewise I should be able to do the same for the default due time for my assignments. If someone likes all of their assignments in their classes to be due at 11:55 PM - great - then let them set their default up that way for all their classes, if I want three different times for three different courses, i.e., assignments are due at the start of class, I'll set it up that way - simple. Obfuscating this straight forward feature doesn't serve anyone. And for Canvas to decide what's best for all of us is not the right approach, let those teaching decide what's best for their students.

Let's see if any Canvas representatives voice their ideas. Have you considered making this a "feature request?" I would vote for it!

(Opps, sorry, I now see that we have been talking about this issue as a "feature request." I also see that it has acquired the more than 100 votes, in fact, 240 votes, and that it has been in development for quite some time, 2 years, with no progress! So the ball is on Canvas' court, there seems to be nothing else we can do as users. Maybe someone from Canvas can summarize the progress being made on this feature request, and tell us when it will be implemented.)

This change will only impact the stage sort of this idea and will not change how it is voted on or how it is considered during prioritization activities. This change will streamline the list of ideas 'open for voting', making it easier for youto see the true top voted ideas in one sort,here.

Thanks for the follow-up question. This idea does not have any progressive stage at this time, and per the blog post (Adaptation: Feature Idea Process Changes) the quarterly prioritization updates will not begin until the end of October at the soonest. Hope that helps.

Rob, actually, it is not on the "radar" because the "radar" is no longer used. Renee (above) mentioned the new system, but she also mentions that the new system won't be implemented until the end of October. So right now, we have no idea where this feature request stands, except that it does have 250 votes, and it started on 8/25/2016. Even if this idea is in the upper 10%, there is still nothing that says it will be implemented, but just that it will stay open for more voting. And there is nothing to say that it won't be removed from the "hot" list because the "hot" list gets recalculated every period (Meaning other ideas might replace it. A feature being "hot" in one period doesn't guarantee that it will be looked at.) Also, if it ever moves off the upper-10% group, this specific feature request is gone, along with its 250 votes. The only way to get it back is for someone to post this idea again, and voting starts from zero again.

Well, Renee, did I get that correct? Certainly, correct me if needed. It might be that the "new tag" that Rob mentions shows up somewhere, but I don't see it.

Oh goodness, I didn't realize this before - we would need to copy over our requests and reasoning to a new pitch entirely? Hmm, would there be a way of gathering awareness and impetus to see this and vote, so that we get enough participation? I guess there are no points for longevity of bringing this issue up?

Rob, I wasn't trying to make you seem "dead wrong." Sorry about that. I was just trying to point out my best understanding of this process.

Jennifer, my post was a bit off the topic of this feature request. We have had discussions about the Canvas process of how feature requests are managed, or in some views, mismanaged, elsewhere in these community forums. Rob's post gave me the opportunity to point out some of the current problems, mainly that we have no clue about where this particular feature request stands, its longevity, or its status. But Rob's post did make me wonder if I was missing something.

Somehow, it appears to me that one way to raise the awareness of feature requests and discussions is to get about a half dozen posts, then this topic seems to show up on the weekly emailed newsletter under the topic of "Trending" (or something like that.) Anyone subscribed to this newsletter will see this topic, and then might visit it, vote on it, or comment on it.

I am one who has never understood the advantages of canning (or should I say "archiving" or "cold-freezing") feature requests and then making people recreate them again, setting the vote to zero, and starting the process all over again. An idea should always remain an idea, at least until the idea is either "implemented" or "obsolete."

Jennifer, this idea is open for voting, and does not need to be recreated. Our team will start commenting on the top 10% (of which this is one) in October 2018. Please read Adaptation: Feature Idea Process Changes for a thorough explanation.

We have been trying to get attention for this for years. I would just like to point out the logical simplicity of the suggestion: Canvas already sets the default time for assignments. We are just asking that teachers have this power. Canvas advertises itself as the LMS that provides the most flexibility for teachers so that we can design courses that fit our specific curricula and the needs of our unique student population. Teachers use the assignment page every single day, multiple times. If we have multiple sections that meet on different days, we have to adjust default due times multiple times for a single assignment. I'm tediously adjusting these defaults many, many times a day. I'd rather spend my time interacting with the LMS in a more productive way.

It would be amazing to implement this on Canvas. As a school that uses a block scheduling system, having default times would be great for making sure that students get the same amount of time to do an assignment. It's tedious having to pick out which section gets what due date when we have multiple assignments to deal with on a daily basis.